Taking You For Granted
by OrangeNinjaAttack
Summary: A one-shot series... Different POVs of characters realizing they've taken people for granted. First POV Reyna, second Calypso, third Jason. Jason's still in planning stages. T for angst, teen drama, and language. Thanks for Percyjacksonfan3 for the help :)
1. Reyna

**_A/N: Raise Your Weapon (Madeon Remix) by deadmau5. That is all._**

* * *

_ripping my heart was so easy, so easy  
launch your assault now, take it easy_

* * *

Reyna had thought Leo was different.

Of course, she had thought that of Percy Jackson, and of Jason Grace. Look where that had gotten her.

And now, Leo really was different. But not in the way she had hoped he would be.

There was a different aura about him now, that signified he had found something new.

Something like Buford the table, or Festus the dragon head.

Something important to him.

Or maybe - just maybe...

...maybe it was a someone.

Reyna couldn't help but feel rejected. It was bad enough, having two praetors turn her down, but Leo, the repair boy? And now that Frank Zhang, of all people, was appointed emergency praetor, she was 0-3 of all the praetors she had worked with.

Could Venus be any crueler?

The daughter of Bellona was extremely hard-working. Extremely.

So why didn't her relationships work out just as well as the rest of her life?

Granted, she was never the nicest to the son of Haephestus. Outwardly, at least. She had hidden the extremely embarrassing emotions deep down. Deep, deep down. Gods, she couldn't even think about him without getting that fluttery feeling in her stomach.

_And that is why Romans believe feeling things made you weak! It did in the ancient days, and it still does!_

Why was she feeling things for a boy that she had known of for maybe a month?

"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways."

That damn daughter of Apollo, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, was being studied in the local university.

Guess which line was being read out loud as Reyna walked beneath one of the classroom's open windows.

_Weak!_

Reyna grumbled in annoyance before walking away, faster than before.

Of course, she couldn't know for sure that Leo had moved on. Maybe he hadn't.

But how did she know that he hadn't?

Direct confrontations were definitely her style. Tell her a problem, she would get the demigod responsible to apologize in under twelve hours. Under twelve minutes depending on the situation. Sometimes even under twelve seconds.

But relationships? Like, touchy-feely, lovey-dovey, kissing and holding hands relationships?

That was uncharted territory. That was Reyna's "No Man's Land."

So what was she to do about Leo?

_Don't think his name, don't think his name, dontthinkhisname. Don't. Think. His. Name._

First of all, she had to apologize, not to him, but to herself. For being so blind.

It was his cheeky, know-it-all, prankster grin. It was all his fault. She probably would've been better off if she actually was blind.

_Breath in. Breath out. Leo does not belong to you._

Reyna looked around at her surroundings, making sure no one had noticed the blood rushing to her cheeks. His smile, his rumpled hair, the hands that never ceased to amaze her with their creations... The result of those things was Reyna feeling tingly. And fluttery in the stomach. And she wasn't sure she wanted to feel those things. Even when she was only thinking of him... her heartbeat got faster, her stomach fluttered, her thoughts got cluttered. Yes, this was very un-Roman of her. It was not right.

And second, she had to figure out a way to stop feeling that way about Le- that boy.

She was probably just taking his feelings for granted. That was all, she just needed to figure out how he really felt. But the question remained; should she ask him...?

Reyna had never felt more confused in her life. And that included the time she got the iris-message while in the baths, and the first time that Nico de Angelo had appeared at Camp Jupiter, and the time that Perc- _don't think his name either! _-and Annabeth had unleashed Blackbeard and his fellow pirates.

She had taken the second boy's feelings for granted, too. And the first boy's.

She had taken them all for granted.

* * *

_ripping through like a missile,  
ripping through my heart  
robbed me of this love_


	2. Calypso

_preserve your ego,_  
_you won't feel a thing_  
_always number one_

* * *

Bittersweet. That was how Calypso felt when she learned about the Olympian's victory over her grandfather. It was good that Kronos had been defeated, he needed to learn a little humility.

But then she had heard that Percy Jackson received one wish from the gods.

And instead of saving her, Percy had saved the other demigods.

Calypso tried not to get too angry about it. After all, she was but one being, and Percy was saving hundreds, maybe thousands of demigods from being killed by allowing them to be claimed.

It still really bent her out of shape, as Hephaestus put it. He also said that it was grinding her gears, whatever those were.

She had every right to be mad at Percy! She had fallen for him, just like all the other boys and men, and he had deserted her, just like all the others.

So why did he promise that he was different?

And why did that crush her so entirely, all the way through her very soul?

She was so tired, so very tired, of being left behind on her beautiful prison. When would someone finally come to rescue her?

_Why am I always forgotten, left alone?_

And that was when she had heard the thump of her table being destroyed.

He had called her Carribean music, reggae, and merengue. She didn't know what any of those things were, but when he had remembered her real name, she had felt that familiar pang.

_Not again! Stop thinking about him!_

And he said something about opening a place called... Leo and Calypso's Garage: Auto Repairs and Mechanical Monsters? It sounded interesting, and Calypso had wanted to leave so, so badly with him. With her entire heart, her entire being, she had been drawn to him like a moth to a flame, and no matter how much she resisted, it was no use.

He was so much like... _him_... but so different. So good, so pure.

And his looks were just a bonus of the package that was Leo Valdez.

Calypso winced internally. _Stop thinking his name! No name thinking allowed anymore!_

Did she know for sure that... _he_... returned her affections?

Yes, she did. Calypso grinned smugly. She had kissed him, and he had kissed her back.

And he promised her that he would come back.

That kiss had made her feel tingly, made her feel alive from her head to her toes, had made her feel...

...had made her feel... in love.

But not the Fates-coordinated, unreal, forced-into kind of love that she usually felt.

This was true, genuine, 100% for real, love.

Calypso's grin became even wider.

She only knew what true love was, because it felt less... distant, less like admiration, than the love she had always felt for her visitors.

And that was why it was good to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all.

* * *

A few days, months, or years later, Calypso started to worry. What if he forgot about her, too?

No. Leo was too caring for that. He wouldn't leave her here... would he?

Just like with the other boy of his generation, she was assuming that she was too important to be forgotten.

Her fatal flaw was that she cared too much; she assumed that others cared as much as she did, and that clearly wasn't true.

She had assumed the last boy cared for her, just like the other one from his generation.

Boys were jerks.

And she had done it again.

She had taken him for granted.

* * *

_dropping your bombs now  
on all we built  
how does it feel now to watch it burn?_


	3. Jason

Jason had assumed that everything would work itself out once Reyna met up with them in Greece.

But on the long journey across the sea to the ancient lands, Piper had talked to him one night, and had re-explained the opposite.

Reyna had had feelings for him.

He hadn't noticed one bit, left New Rome (well, technically his patron kidnapped him), and finally came back with a new girl, whom he happened to be holding hands with.

And Jason had thought Leo was dense when it came to girls.

He hadn't completely missed Reyna's affections. He had noticed during the reunion, that Reyna looked extremely pained during the Percy and Annabeth scene, or Percabeth, as Piper was now referring to them (yes, Piper shipped them, whatever that meant). But Jason had assumed that the feelings were for Percy.

Was she wishing for that kind of interaction with him? That kind of special reunion?

Jason hadn't even realized Reyna's feelings for him until Piper had not-so-subtly pointed them out to him, and by then it was too late to do any possible damage control. Reyna was supremely pissed, and was leading a horde of angry Romans after them. The odds were not in Jason's favor if he had decided to try and talk to them.

And then, when Reyna had finally met up with them after the battle in the House of Pluto, she had been icy and distant to him. Her eyes were careful to never meet his, and when she said his name... gods, she sounded broken when she said his name. She sounded the same way as during the reunion.

Longing.

Did Reyna ever confide in anyone other than fellow praetors?

The thought made him guilty.

She had talked to him about everything except for how she had supposedly felt about him, and this was how he repayed her?

_It's not my fault! I can't control my hormones!_

Says who? He was Jason, slayer of Krios, destroyer of thrones, ex-praetor of the Twelfth Legion of Rome. He had done amazing, impossible, incredible things, but he couldn't control how he thought about girls?

Some leader he was turning out to be.

_I can't control who I love and who I don't love._

_But I can control who I spend time with._

He had assumed that they would always work together. It was implied most of the time that pairs of praetors were... together, but Jason had ignored that idea every time it had come up. He didn't think of Reyna that way, and never would. Reyna was like a sister to him.

Maybe if he hadn't met Piper, they could've been a "thing" like Percabeth, but that was the point.

Piper was in his life, and he was happy with her. He could see himself going through college with her, marrying her, having kids with her...

Jason shook his head. He shouldn't, he couldn't think too much about the future with so much at stake in Greece. And what if something was to go wrong? Who would the Fates pick to leave behind, Piper or Jason, if one was required to go to Hades?

Jason didn't want to die. And he didn't want to leave Piper alone in such a huge, crazy, nasty world. He just wanted to protect her.

But if she died, that wouldn't be protecting.

If Jason died, he couldn't protect her from the grief of his passing, but he wanted her to live. He needed her to live.

He felt the same way about Reyna, but in the big-brother protective sort of way, not the I-love-you-more-than-life way. And Jason was sure that he and Piper would evolve into that type of relationship.

But first they had to outlive the giants.

And he was pretty sure that if Piper didn't survive, then neither would he, because he would die trying to save her.

Then again, he couldn't be there to help Reyna restore peace over in the U S of A. He had been praetor, and she had been too. Would she even be considered a praetor anymore, now that they had broken old laws, and gone to the ancient lands? How would she even stop Octavian from obliterating Camp Half-Blood, a place almost as close to his heart as Piper?

And why did he have to choose between Reyna and Piper?

The right choice was always obvious; to him at least. Here's a hint: her name didn't have a "y" in it.

But he had just assumed that Reyna would still accept him, would still want to be around him if he was with Piper. He hadn't even questioned their friendship, and definitely not to see if Reyna had felt something more.

Should he have asked? Or would that have ruined their friendship, made him sound like a cocky jerk, and left Reyna utterly embarrassed?

It was better off the way it was, he decided. Besides, there was no point in dwelling on the past, because there was no way to change it.

All the same, one thing was absolutely clear to him:

He had taken her for granted.

And he might have just lost her forever.


	4. Thalia

Thalia was tired of her memories. They were never reliable, and of course, there was that six-and-a-half gap that jumped from her almost being mauled by hellhounds, to herself lying in what was presumably an infirmary bed, and Annabeth sitting next to her, except, Annabeth wasn't... Annabeth. She was older, more mature, had obviously seen more of the world.

And then Thalia had turned to see Luke.

But where she had expected to see Luke, had been a shorter boy, with black hair instead of sandy brown, and sea green eyes instead of blue. There was no scar on his face, and instead of a silly smirk and an unneeded quip, the boy just sat there.

This was not Luke.

"What... what happened?" is all she remembered saying. Later that night, all she did was cry.

Luke was gone.

And he was betraying the gods because she had saved his life.

Annabeth had explained everything after dinner, in the Big House. Who the greened-eyed boy was, what Luke had done to him, Luke's failed quest, and the quest they had returned from recently, to retrieve the Golden Fleece, which had inexplicably brought Thalia back.

"Thals," she had said, "don't get me wrong. I'm so, _so,_ glad you're back, but we just played right into Kronos' hand."

Thalia didn't remember anything before waking up in the infirmary, not even the brief period of time that she had supposedly been awake a few days ago, when she had introduced herself to Percy and scared the camp out of their minds.

She had been filled in on the Great Prophecy, and Percy had explained what that meant for the two of them during breakfast the next day.

"Our lives are always at stake, not like that's any different than usual," he stated with a half-grin, half-grimace, exactly the way Luke would've. Thalia had felt a pang.

_Not now,_ she remembered thinking.

So those specific emotions were placed in a locked chest, buried beneath the new memories she was making, and were being shoved farther away by the second. She did not feel that way about Luke anymore, she never had, and he never would.

And now that Thalia was a Hunter, the first leiutenant to be exact, she wasn't exactly allowed to feel that way about boys. Or men. Plus, Luke was dead, so she would never love anyone again, not in that way.

Thalia had no doubt that he would have chosen to be reborn, especially after what Annabeth had said happened in the throne room. Luke had still been her Luke in the end.

Thalia had felt that familiar pang when she heard that, which was okay because she hadn't been a Hunter yet. But now that was not allowed.

That was the last time she had ever felt that way.

In the ideal situation, if she allowed herself to think about it, she and Luke would be living together at the Isle of the Blest, after living through three other lives. Annabeth would be there, probably with Percy. The couples would share houses, and although they most likely couldn't have pets or kids or anything like that, she knew they would've been happy. But of course Hades _had_ to have his revenge, and instead of her father letting her go to wait for Luke in Elysium, he _had_ to make her into a pine tree.

Why in Tartarus a _pine_ tree, anyways?

Thalia supposed that if she had died, Luke would've tried to dethrone Hades or something like that, but if that had happened, maybe he wouldn't have died. If he had, then they still could've stayed together in Elysium.

Dumb Zeus.

It was all his fault that the prophecy turned out the way it did. Okay, maybe not entirely.

But it was still mostly his fault.

Dumb, _dumb_ Zeus.

And Thalia, being the child she was, had assumed that she was going to die.

Or that if her dad truly loved her, he would've teleported her or whatever over into safety.

And that Luke and Annabeth would go on and become the two strongest demigods ever.

Clearly, she was wrong about all of the future.

Luke had died, supposedly a hero's death, Annabeth had grown up without her, and then there was that whole shebang with Percy.

Had Thalia thought he was cute when they had met? Maybe a _little_ bit.

Had that been overshadowed once he opened his big mouth? Absolutely.

"So what's it like, being a tree?" was the first thing she had ever heard from those lips, and everything went downhill from there. (To answer his question, she hadn't known that she was a tree at the time.)

Apparently, Dionysus had also commented on her treeness, saying that he hated it when pretty girls turned into trees. Thalia would've found that funny, except she was the one that was a tree, and Dionysus had called her pretty.

Dionysus was a total doofus, too, but don't tell him she said that. If Percy was Kelp Head, then Dionysus was Vine Brain, according to Thalia.

Maybe she was too bitter. That was probably her fatal flaw, assuming that everyone was out to get her (except Annie, of course).

If Luke were still here, she wondered if he would have approved of her choices.

If Luke were still here, her choices would've been different.

She most likely wouldn't have become a Hunter of Artemis.

If Luke were still here, she wondered if they would've had a ship name like Percy and Annabeth, whatever Piper had meant by that. (There was this whole incident with Piper explaining what ships were, how they worked, who was allowed to "sail" with who, etc., and Thalia honestly understood none of it. Love was not exactly her area of expertise.)

Percabeth was "sailing smoothly," whatever that meant. Piper was blabbing one day about how "seperation makes the heart remember what it missed" and "just look at Persephone and Hades, Percabeth is just like it" and things like that which had made Thalia want to punch her.

Thank the gods that Annabeth was on her way over to Camp Jupiter with Leo, Piper, and Jason now to find Percy and the other three of the seven.

Oh Styx... Piper would have even more to say about Percabeth when they got back...

Would Thalia have wanted to be talked about with Luke, if he was still around?

Definitely yes. She was sure that they would have their fair share of fights, arguments, breakups and makeups. She just wished (slightly) that he was still around to do that with.

When she had been taken to limbo by that godsawful pine tree, she had prayed that Luke and Annabeth would live.

Yes, she had known that she would have died; yes, she had realized at the last second she had started to feel tingly. But those memories were hazy and unclear.

Thalia wasn't sure if they had really happened or not.

She also was unclear on if she had known she would end up being alive again. Probably not.

She had taken her life for granted before then. Sure, they were always on the run, but she had known in her gut that none of them would die - yet. She had known that they would all live.

But now that she knew what it felt like to be on the verge of death, knew what it was to accept the fact that you were dying, she wasn't ready to go back to that point.

So she had promised herself. Never again.

Thalia was never taking anything for granted again, not even life.


End file.
